Forests near Chernobyl still under stress from fallout

PINE trees near the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine are altering their DNA in response to the radioactive fallout from the reactor accident in 1986. The changes act as a defence mechanism that prevents the trees' genome from being destabilised by radiation.

The explosion of one of Chernobyl's reactors showered trees in the surrounding area with a huge amount of radioactivity. Scots pines (Pinus silvestris) that received the biggest radiation doses - in excess of 60 grays - died, turned brown and became known as "the red forest". But those exposed to smaller doses survived, suggesting they may have found ways of tolerating the radiation.

To test the theory, Olga Kovalchuk from the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, with Andrey Arkhipov and Nikolai Kuchma from the Chernobyl Centre in Ukraine conducted long-term experiments in which they planted uncontaminated Scots pine seeds in the highly contaminated soil where Chernobyl's radioactive ...

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